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Recommend Mass Combat House Rules
The New Dawn game spawned a lot of Mass Combat house rules, many to adapt the Mass Combat system to the specifics of New Dawn. However, some of it is generally applicable to most Mass Combat games. =Generally Useful Rule Clarifications or Fixes= These are house rules that either clarify an unclear part of the rules, fix an obviously broken rule, or adjust the rules to give people more options. Justifications for the rules are in italics. Fighting Chapter Forces in Motion Forced Marches and No Security Movement each give +50% movement speed and are cumulative with each other. This prevents infantry from routinely marching 60 miles/day on roads in friendly territory. Reconnaissance Operations A unit's spotting range is 5 miles for foot mobility; 10 miles for foot mobility with Rec or any of mechanized, motor, or mounted mobility; 15 miles for mechanized, motor, or mounted mobility with Rec; and 75 miles for air mobility. A unit is aware of any enemy force within its spotting range and has a very approximate idea of its size from counting banners or flags. Reconnaissance Contests occur when the faster force is within 1/4th its base movement rate in the current terrain of the slower force. Guidelines for when reconnaissance happens and when battles start. Defense Bonuses An encamped force may always claim a Defense Bonus unless it is at the No Security Posture, even if it doesn't have initiative in a pitched battle or isn't bunkered during an encounter battle. A force performing a Fighting Retreat, Full Retreat, Raid or Skirmish may claim half its normal Defense Bonus. Strictly by the rules, a bunkered force can never win initiative, and thus can never claim a Defense Bonus in a pitched battle, which is clearly wrong. This rule fixes it, and also makes raiding after you've lost PB something other than the worst choice ever. Ambushes Ambushers only benefit from defensive bonuses without taking a defense strategy on the first round of combat. On subsequent rounds, they must take a defense strategy to get a defense bonus. Clarifying how ambushes work. Maximum Class Bonuses The bonus to Battle Strategy from special classes is limited by the number of available troops, either friendly troops to employ them or enemy troops to use them on. Total Battle Strategy bonus from special classes is capped at the maximum of 6, friendly TS bonus, or enemy TS bonus. This limits the advantage that a combined arm force with lots of class specials gets over an equal sized enemy force without many class specials. By the rules, a force of 1 element of Light Cavalry, 1 element of Battlemages, and a Balloon gets +18 in class superiority bonuses over 10 elements of Heavy Infantry, and it's a crushing defeat for the heavy infantry. Risk Modifier Commander do not add their Risk Modifier to their Battle Strategy roll. They may attempt significant actions like anyone else. Risk +3 is not very risky, but +3 on Battle Strategy is a huge bonus. Make commanders work for their victories. Victory? If both sides choose Retreat strategies on the same round, both sides lose for the purpose of determining casualties, pursuit, and holding the field. Neither side can loot the battlefield until one of them returns to the battlefield. Retreating forces move 1/4 their normal daily movement away from the enemy. This just adds some specifics for where retreating forces end up. Casualties A force that chooses a Retreat strategy (Fighting Withdrawal or Full Retreat) while it is at 40% casualties or less halves its casualties after the fight, including casualties sustained during the retreat, but not including bonus casualties from any desperate strategy used during the retreat or casualties from enemy pursuit. Mass Combat battles can quickly become win or die, where a slightly inferior force discovers that if they abandon the field, their force take 30% casualties and be a massively inferior force in the next fight but their opponent will only take 10% casualties. So the slightly inferior force has to grind it out, hoping for a lucky roll. This rule lets a force decide to break contact and recover casualties - if it does it soon enough. =More Detail in Forces= Unlike the previous set of rules, these fixes aren't really necessary. They add a little more detail but are a little more complicated. Again, justifications are in italics. Elements and Forces Special Classes ;Insubstantial (Insub) The element consists of Diffuse or Insubstantial elements that are highly resistant to the attacks of most normal combatants. Only other spirits and some highly specialized anti-spirit units can readily defeat them. Examples include elementals, nature spirits, and ghosts. There needs to be a special class for ghosts and diffuse monsters in general. This is similar to the Phasing special class (Pyramid v3#84 p 26) but a much less complex implementation. ;Spellcaster (Spell) The element consists of spellcasters and their assistants. Spellcasters perform magic, which can have a wide variety of effects, but can also be countered by other spellcasters. Spells are especially useful for reconnaissance and communication. Spell Superiority is added to Recon contests and counts as C3I superiority when using the Indirect Attack strategy. This simplifies mages from being a multi-purpose combat unit that can be countered by more artillery to a bunch of spellcasters than need to be countered by spellcasters. Mobility ;Land Mobility :Wheeled (Wld): Elements that move using muscle powered wheels. They are nearly as fasted as Mounted elements on roads but are slower than Foot elements off-road. Wagons and chariots are not horses; there needs to be a distinction between them. Optional Features ;Class-Killer Some units don't just make it difficult for the other side to use a Special Class; they actively hunt down enemy elements of that Class and destroy them. If a force has elements with Class-Killer and the enemy does not have Class Superiority in that class, then after the battle, the force commander may opt to force the enemy force commander to double the casualty percentage of units with that Class - though the overall casualty rate does not change, so non-class units take fewer casualties. Class-Killer has no effect if the enemy takes no casualties or if all of the enemy force is made up of elements with the affected Class. Only one Class-Killer option can be used per battle. This is an elegant implementation of mage-hunters and assassins. It's very low stress but lets a force make targeted attacks on the enemy. ;Fragile This element is composed of troops who perform poorly under heavy stress. As long as they are part of a winning army, whether on the offense or defense, they act as their training and experience dictate. Should they find themselves losing, they behave much worse than their training and experience would suggest, refusing to move from safe positions on the offense and either refusing to fall back from compromised positions on the defense or retreating too quickly and failing to hold positions. It can also represent units like mindless undead that are difficult to control. If a force contains at least 20% fragile elements (by percentage of total elements or total TS), then the force commander has an additional -2 penalty to Battle Strategy rolls when choosing the Rally strategy or when rolling after losing the previous round of battle. The penalty is not cumulative. This is a fairly simple modifier with a lot of uses. Troop Quality There are three new Troop Quality levels: Crack, Poor, and Terrible. * Crack: These are troops that would normally be Good quality after they have extensive combat experience, or picked troops that are not seasoned with combat veterans. They have a TS Modifier of +75%, a Raise Modifier of +150% (+75% for Fanatics), and a +30% Maintain Modifier. * Poor: These are troops that aren't quite Average nor Inferior, such as poorly trained conscripts or somewhat inexperienced militia. They have a TS Modifier of -25%, a Raise Modifier of -25%, and a -25% Maintain Modifier. * Terrible: These are soldiers that are worse than Inferior: poorly trained and unenthusiastic conscripts; parade ground armies with corrupt and unprofessional NCOs; and peaceful civilians suddenly given weapons. They have a TS Modifier of -75%, a Raise Modifier of -75%, and a -75% Maintain Modifier. If Terrible troops also have Poor equipment, the combined TS, Raise, and Maintain modifier is only -80%. The base troop qualities are a little too broad for my taste: Inferior especially has to cover a wide range of troops, from not-so-good to completely awful. Three new levels help bridge the gaps. =Additional details for raising a force and battlefield experience= These are just my personal expansions for some parts of Mass Combat that are GM defined by the rules. I'm the GM, these are my definitions. Optional Features ;Hero To count as a hero, an individual must have a weapon skill of 20+ and either an unencumbered Dodge of 10+ or either a Block or Parry of 14+, without counting shield DB or inherent Parry bonuses for their weapon type. Element type is Bowmen for archers and crossbowmen, Heavy Infantry for most melee fighters, or Light Infantry for slingers, scouts, or spear throwers. Mounted heroes are treated as Horse Archers, Cataphracts, Heavy Cavalry, or Scout Cavalry as appropriate. Heroes with an encumbered Move of 11+ qualify for Mounted mobility and Cv class even if they're on foot. For a spellcaster to count as a hero, they need 100 points in Sorcerous Empowerment, Divine Favor, Compartmentalized Mind. For standard magic mages, points in Magery or spells count at half value. Every additional 50 points in those advantages (or spell skills) increases the hero's troop quality by one level. A hero normally has Good equipment quality, but if much of their gear is exceptional, they may qualify for Fine or better equipment. A hero normally as Average troop quality. A hero with Soldier or Tactics of 12+ is Good quality. Soldier or Tactics of 14+ is required for Crack quality, and Soldier or Tactics of 16+ is required for Elite quality. Heroes with the Recon Special Class need the same values for Observation and Stealth (Riding for cavalry units). Hero units may have additional Optional Features or Special Classes at the GM's discretion. PC hero units have reduced maintenance costs: 15% of normal. There is an alternate version of determining PC hero TS values in Pyramid v3#84 pp 23-29, but this version is quicker, simpler, and produces TS values more in line with Mass Combat. It is hard to be a spellcaster hero because you need to be able to replace 4-5 spellcasters: one really skilled spellcaster is not the same. Raising a Force ;Summoning Levies Levy forces have half normal TS for the first two weeks after they've been called up, as members report for duty, reorganize, and retrain. They are available for combat during this period, but their two months of free service do not start until they are at full TS. This is a fix for a weird situation you can have where the militia pops up just as an invading army arrives. ;Converting Levies A normal unit can be converted to a levy, or a levy to a normal unit, by encamping the unit for four weeks and paying 20% of the unit's raise cost. The unit must be encamped within two days travel of the unit's home. Levies can be retrained or refitted while being converted. ;Raise Time For simplicity, assume that producing equipment can be spread out everywhere and done in parallel. Equipment quality has no effect on Raise Time, which is 1 week per $10K of base raise cost and then adjusted by the Raise Modifiers for Training Quality and any special features. This is an okay rule for low-tech forces, and it simplifies some things and avoids some degenerate conditions where people where raising troops with Poor equipment then refitting them with captured gear because it was faster than raising them with Good equipment. ;Refitting Troops Elements can be refitted with the captured gear of defeated enemies. This takes one week and can be combined with raising, converting, or training a unit. The unit gets the equipment quality of the defeated enemy. Using captured enemy gear this way reduces the loot from the defeated enemy unit by 80%. ;Battlefield Experience Each time a unit survives a battlefield, it gains 1 experience. It then loses 1 experience if it took more than 40% casualties, half its experience (round the remaining experience down) if it took more than 50% casualties, and all its experience if took more than 75% casualties. A unit with the C modifier loses it when it survives a battle, whether or not it gained experience. A unit can be retrained to lock in its experience and improve its troop quality by 1 step after earning 2 experience for Terrible, Inferior, Poor, or Average troops. Good troops require 4 experience to raise to Crack; Crack requires 8 to raise to Elite. Retraining takes one week per $10K of the difference in the raise costs of the improved troop and the unimproved troop. Units with more experience are cheaper to retrain: each extra point of experience reduces the cost by 20%, to a minimum of 0. The retraining time is based on the adjust cost, but can't be reduced below the lower of four weeks or the normal time to raise the unit. A unit cannot move or fight in any battles while it is being retrained, and if it moves or fights in a battle, an entire week of training needs to be redone. A very experienced unit can improve its quality by multiple steps at once instead of reducing the cost of training. It takes x5 experience to raise the quality by two steps or x10 to raise it by three. An expansion of "Improvements" from Mass Combat p12. ;Recovering Dispersed Troops The losing side in a battle permanently loses half of its total casualties as fatalities, and the remainder lose their equipment and flee (MC 38). These dispersed troops can be rounded up and pressed back into service. Immediately after the battle, treat the troops as having Poor Equipment and Terrible quality, regardless of their initial troop quality. They also have the Fragile feature. It takes two weeks of reforming to return them to their original troop qualities levels, and they must be maintained at the higher rate for their original troop quality while reforming. They do not lose the Fragile feature. If they gain battlefield experience and are retrained to a higher quality, they lose the Fragile feature at the end of the retraining. Alternately, dispersed troops may be sent back to training, as though they were being raised from scratch. This takes the normal time but is 25% cheaper as the troops already know something. Dispersed troops raised from scratch lose any battlefield experience and the Fragile feature. The Logistics Force ;Campaign Season The campaign season is four months long, covering August, September, October, and November. 8 months of normal supply plus 4 months of half cost supply means the yearly cost to supply a troop is 10x the maintenance cost, instead of 10.5 from the normal rules. This change is 100% to simplify my math. ;Force Replacements Troop quality is determined by training and culture and all new troops are raised at the appropriate quality level. If an army has created higher quality troops through battlefield experience, it may not be able to raise fresh units of the same quality to act as replacements. Adding lesser quality troops to a high quality unit generally lowers the quality of the high quality unit, but there are ways to get around it. Field Merges At any time, two or more units with the same element type and gear quality can be merged. If the new unit is more than 11% larger than the largest unit in the merge, the new unit has training quality equal to the average, rounded down, of the unweighted TS modifiers of all the merging units' training qualities and battlefield experience equal to the lowest battlefield experience of the merging units, along with the C modifier. Field merges takes no time. If any of the units involved in a field merge have the C modifier, the new unit is automatically treated as being more than 11% larger than the largest unit. Cadres A unit can absorb more reinforcements if it is given time to absorb them and train them to the unit's standards. A unit can take up to 60% of its size in lower quality reinforcements without losing quality (and indeed, raising the quality of the reinforcements) by taking four weeks to train with them. This training is expensive (pay the cost to raise the quality of the reinforcements normally) but is an easy way to quickly produce a high quality unit. The reinforced unit sets its battlefield experience to 0C. No unit with a C modifier to battlefield experience can participate in a cadre, either absorbing or providing reinforcements. The reinforcements cannot have a training quality more than three levels worse than the cadre unit (ie, elites need average reinforcements and can't cadre poor or worse troops). Units acting as cadres and absorbing reinforcements cannot move or fight in any battles and must repeat the full week of training if they do move or fight in a battle. The reinforcements are keep their lower quality until the training with the cadre unit is complete. Instructors A high quality unit can be used as instructors to improve the quality of newly raised troops. Each element assigned to act as an instructor can train ten elements to its quality. Raising new elements with instructors has the normal cost of raising a new element of the appropriate quality. Instructors don't save money, they just allow veteran units to raise better units than a nation's normal training programs. Elements acting as instructors cannot move or fight in any battles and must repeat the full week of training if they do move or fight in a battle. Elements in the process of being raised do not exist for mass combat purposes until their training is complete. Various rules on getting better forces quickly. I quite like the Instructors rule, as it reflects the actual US Navy versus Japanese Navy decisions with regards to pilot training: the US returned the better pilots to the US to train the next generation of pilots, while the Japanese kept them on the front line.